


Puff the Magic Dragon

by orphan_account



Series: Just Us [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you haven't read Just Us this probably isn't going to make much sense.</p><p>Louis and Liam get high and talk about feelings. Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puff the Magic Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a followup to Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Not enough Lilo in my life (or in my fic), so here you are!

“Remember when I told you I didn’t think you were a threat?” Liam asks Louis, his eyes on Louis’ hands as he rolls a joint with quick, careful movements. 

“Don’t think I’ll ever forget it, mate, the scars on my ego are pretty permanent,” Louis responds, running his tongue over the edge of the rolling paper to seal it. “Why?”

Liam cracks his knuckles, a nervous habit that Danielle had hated and Louis, now, winces at. “I think maybe I was lying. Or. That’s not all of it. Or something.”

Louis twists the end of the joint closed. “Let me guess,” he says. “This has to do with our favorite boy named after a certain river in Egypt.”

Liam blinks at him. What—

“Niall,” Louis says. “Like the Nile? The river? Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, it’s also the Irish boy who’s stealing our lads’ hearts away from us?” He sighs. “Li, for a pre-law genius kid you’re pretty dumb.”

“Um,” says Liam, ignoring most of that because it’s Louis. “Yes, it’s about Niall.” He takes a breath and thinks about how happy Zayn looked, when the two of them got back from the theatre, how beautiful and joyful. He’d kissed Liam enthusiastically and there had been no sort of, of competition between Niall and him but.

“Dani was my first love,” he says after a minute. “It took a hell of a lot to break myself out of thinking I was going to be with her, only her, forever.”

Louis looks at him for a long moment, long enough that Liam feels like maybe he should move, or say something else, but he can’t figure out how to say it if Louis doesn’t already know. Finally Louis puts the joint to his lips and flicks the lighter, pulling until the curl of paper has burned away and the pot itself cherries. He blows out slow and then says, “It took Zayn.”

Liam takes the joint from him, scowling in thought. “Yeah,” he says. “And you, kind of,” he says, trying not to put any weight on it but feeling like it needs to be said.

Louis’ eyebrows fly up in question, but Liam’s saved from answering them by the burn of smoke in his throat. He concentrates on not coughing—he’s not used to this, really—and watches the smoke rise to the ceiling of Perrie’s flat.  


He can’t quite think of it as theirs, yet, the way he can’t quite think of all of them as a them. Louis and Zayn and him, yeah, they were a _them_ , a family of a kind, but now Harry and Niall are here too and they haven’t quite settled into their new shape. 

He passes the joint back to Louis. “I dunno,” he says. “I’m just. Worried he’ll…” he gestures. _Forget me_ is wrong, and everything else is so melodramatic he wants to laugh at himself. “I’m worried it won’t be the same as it has been and I, I waited so long to even get _this_ , and then I feel.” He swallows. “Niall makes him so happy, that shouldn’t upset me.”

Louis chuckles, smoke curling from his mouth. “Tell me about it.”

Liam shakes his head, running his hands through his curls, and Louis tucks his feet under his legs. It’s comfortable and right, even if the couch is too long for the two of them. “It’s not going to be the same, probably,” Louis says slowly. “But that doesn’t mean it’ll be worse.”

Liam shrugs a little and accepts the joint.

“Zayn has had three years, you know,” Louis says as he watches Liam pull. “Three years and you and me. He’s not the same kid Niall left behind.”

Liam blows smoke out slow. His mouth tastes bitter with pot and a tiny bit with tears, to his shame “But what if he _wants_ to be?” he says, and it’s not something he ever would have said to anyone else, in any other situation, but it’s just _Lou_ and they’re getting high and he trusts him to the ends of the earth. “What if that’s what he’s really been longing for?”

Louis scrambles over to him, slinging an arm around his shoulder and pulling him in so Liam’s curled against his chest. He’s so much smaller than Liam that Liam finds himself laughing, his eyes a little bit wet. Louis gently removes the joint from his fingers, and Liam tilts his head so they’re temple-to-temple. He doesn’t usually touch like the rest of them do, really, except for with Zayn, but this is nice. 

“Zayn and I were going to make a dictionary,” Louis says softly, his cheek shifting against Liam’s as he talks. “For stuff like this. And if we did, there would be a word we’d make up for how he looks when you’re touching him.”

Liam blinks. “Huh?”

“I have never ever _ever_ ,” Louis says, rolling sideways and upwards so that he’s facing Liam, “seen Zayn as happy as he is with you. Not ever.” He shakes his head and pulls, and his mouth is quite close and Liam watches it with a vague sense of _oh, I’ve kissed that._

Louis holds the smoke in his mouth for a minute, rolling it around as he thinks, and lets it go, continuing to talk. “I don’t know if I can even classify it as _just_ happy, it’s like. Centered and happy and right and. _That’s_ the Zayn he wants to be, not some heartbroken kid.” 

Liam drops his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, unconvinced. His brain knows Louis is right (his brain knows Louis is pretty much always right) but he can’t shake the weird sick fear in his stomach. 

“Hey,” says Louis, and then there are soft fingers under Liam’s chin, pulling his head up, and Louis smiles at him, soft and hazy. “Give Zayn some credit, huh? If he wanted out, he’d tell you.”

Liam swallows. “He never broke up with Perrie because he didn’t want to hurt her.”

Louis shakes his head, scowling at him, and slips his fingers up to Liam’s mouth, joint between them. Liam catches it between his lips, feeling somehow chastised. 

“He also,” Louis says sharply, “never lied to her. Has he told you he wants to be with you?”

Liam nods, breathing in bitter smoke. He’s going a bit tunnel-vision. He keeps getting distracted by how close Louis is, the sweep of his eyelashes on his cheek. “He told me nothing’s changed,” he says.

“Then nothing’s changed,” Louis says matter-of-factly, “and it’s only going to change if you refuse to take him at his word and get jealous.” He holds his fingers out for the joint. “Give me that.”

Liam starts to, and then thinks better of it. “No,” he says, smirking at Louis, and takes another draw, leaning back and away.

“No?!” Louis demands, and darts forward, grabbing at it. Liam, in a gesture he is really quite proud of, dodges without spilling ash or pot all over the rug. He lets his breath out in a rush as Louis lands against his stomach, still reaching for his hand.

Liam raises his eyebrows and draws again, holding the smoke in his mouth, and Louis gapes at him for a split second before growling, “Fine, if that’s how you want to play it, Payne,” and then he slides his hands into Liam’s hair. He pulls him down hard and then stops him short, his lips touching Liam’s just the barest slide of skin on skin as he steals the smoke from between them.

He breathes it out his nose like a triumphant dragon and Liam laughs at him until his sides are sore. Louis scowls and scowls and scowls at him. “I’ll have you know that was very sexy,” he says petulantly.

Liam nods. “It was,” he concedes, “until the part where you turned into Puff the Magic Dragon.”

“Shut up, Liam,” Louis mutters, and steals the joint from Liam’s unresisting fingers, but he’s still curled up on Liam’s stomach and he’s making sense, because Louis always makes sense, wise, wise wizard Louis, and then Liam’s laughing again, bubbling and happy, the worry in his stomach sucked away by Louis’ mouth on his.

Louis just watches him, the end of the joint between his lips, like he’s never quite seen anything like him and he’s not sure he understands but he loves him nonetheless, and Liam loves him back. “You’re both the dragon and the wizard,” he says, in order to tell Louis so.

“Okay, mate,” Louis says indulgently. “Who’s the princess?”

“Harry, probably,” says Liam. “Niall’s the squire, or the minstrel because he plays guitar. Although that doesn’t make sense, neither the dragon nor the wizard ever get the girl, and neither does the minstrel.”

“I must be the knight, then,” Louis points out logically.

“No,” says Liam. “Zayn’s the knight. Shining armor and all.”

“Copy,” says Louis, smirking. There’s smoke in the curl of his lips and Liam reaches out to touch it, half poking him in the face, half caressing his mouth. He doesn’t really care which half Louis notices.

“I like you high,” Louis notes, his lips brushing the tips of Liam’s fingers. “Tactile.” He stubs the joint out in the ashtray.

“Yeah,” Liam acknowledges distractedly. He frowns. “Louis,” he says, concerned. “I think I might be the princess.”

Louis bursts out laughing, burying his face in Liam’s chest, and Liam folds his arms around him and keeps him there for as long as he’ll stay.


End file.
